


Being the Cool Uncle

by melannen



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Asexuality, Family, Gen, Kidfic, Mentorship, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-20
Updated: 2011-05-20
Packaged: 2017-10-19 14:59:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/202117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melannen/pseuds/melannen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Uncle Charlie was great with patching up scrapes and getting back on a broomstick. Romance, he had less experience with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Being the Cool Uncle

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt meme at the Dreamwidth community asexual_fandom: "Harry Potter, Charlie Weasley, Giving his nieces and nephews romantic advice is always a little awkward, since he doesn't have much experience, but they come to him anyway. Then one of them comes to him to admit they're not interested in anyone and they're worried something's wrong with them."

"'lo, Roxy, what's up?" Charlie asked, turning away from the pick-up Quidditch game he was technically supervising.

Roxy twirled a four-leaf clover between her fingers and looked down. "Uncle Charlie, were you ever in love with someone?"

Charlie stilled, and said, very carefully, "Why do you ask, Roxy?" After he'd come to terms with the fact that he wouldn't be giving Mum any grandchildren, he'd embraced the 'cool uncle' role whenever he was back in England. And most of the time, teaching his little nieces and nephews dirty songs and magic tricks and family history their parents didn't want them to know, and how to grow up into themselves for themselves, was the most fun he'd ever had not on dragonback. But they were getting old enough, now, to be coming to him with romantic travails and desperate tragic loves.

Charlie was great with patching up scrapes and getting back on a broomstick. Romance, he had less experience with. But he knew just how precious the trust they offered him was, and he didn't want to screw it up.

Roxy shrugged. "I dunno. Just everybody else is married, or in love. Even Albus Severus has a boyfriend now."

Little Albus had a boyfriend? That was news, and Charlie filed it away in the sure knowledge that someone would be coming to him for advice on that, too. But all he said to Roxy was, "You're still young, Roxy. Don't rush it. You'll find someone for yourself eventually."

"But what if I don't want to find someone?" Roxy asked, finally looking him in the eyes.

"What... do you mean, Roxy?" Charlie asked, slowly. Surely she couldn't mean she was like him; he didn't dare try to push her into something she wasn't, just because.

"Vicky asked when I was going to get a boyfriend or a girlfriend, and I said I didn't want one, and she said I was being a silly little girl and I'd want one someday, and Lucy said I should practice now or I'd be sorry when I was behind everybody else, and I said I didn't want anyone ever and I wouldn't be sorry, and Rose said I didn't want to grow up to be sad and alone, did I? And I said you weren't sad and alone and I could grow up to be like you, and Lily asked if you really hadn't ever had anyone and it would be so sad if you hadn't anyway, and Vicky said she heard that you had been in love once but you lost her tragically in the war and you were still in love and that was why you didn't have anyone else, and I don't want to have a lost love in a war, Uncle Charlie, I just want to be me by myself. So I said I'd ask you."

Charlie huffed out a breath. "Having a lost love can be useful, Roxy, when you're turning thirty and your grandmum wants to know why you haven't brought a girlfriend or husband home for Christmas yet. But I hope you'll never need one. I didn't think anyone even remembered that old story."

"You mean, you didn't?"

Charlie grinned a little. He was kind of ashamed of getting desperate enough to pull that one, but hey, it had worked. "I told Uncle Ron I did, but I told him it had to be a secret between us. Your family are all hopeless romantics, have you noticed that yet? He managed to get the rest of them to stop bothering me about it. But no, I never fell in love, Roxy. Not for real. Not even for fun, for a little while."

She pulled a leaf from the clover. "And does that mean you're sad and alone?"

Charlie thought about it. "Sometimes. Sometimes I think about what it would be like to have a bunch of little brats like you underfoot all the time, and someone to kiss me after dinner. But your mum and dad are sad sometimes too, aren't they?"

Roxy nodded.

"And I bet sometimes they wish they could come home to an empty house and do whatever they want, like I do!"

Roxy smiled a little. "Yeah. Sometimes. Especially now that you showed us where to get tricks that Dad doesn't already know everything about."

Charlie nodded. "See? Everybody's sad and lonely sometimes, Roxy, no matter how many people they have around them. But I'm happy most of the time, too. And I'm only alone when I want to be. I have my dragons, and I have lots and lots of friends, and I have your grandmum and granddad and all your aunts and uncles, and I have all of you lot of cousins, when I can keep count of you - I couldn't be lonely even if I wanted to! And I never wanted somebody to be my boyfriend or my girlfriend. I always have way too much to keep me busy, just being myself."

"So it is okay to want to grow up to be like you," Roxy said firmly.

Charlie wasn't quite prepared for the jolt of love and pride that went through him when she said that, but he was careful not to show it, not too much. "Well, if you run off to Romania to train dragons, don't blame me for it, your grandmum still hasn't quite forgiven me for going!"

"Not training dragons, Uncle Charlie! I'm going to be an explorer like Aunt Luna, anyway. I mean not ever getting married or falling in love or anything. That's okay."

"It is absolutely okay," Charlie said. "Of course, you are still young, Roxy. You might change your mind later and decide you do want someone, and that's okay too. But you don't have to worry about that now, and never let anybody convince you that you have to pretend to want something you don't. Even if it's Vicky and Rose and Lily and Lucy. And if someone tries to tell you that being who you are is wrong, come and tell me about it, and I'll give them a proper thumping for it."

Roxy giggled and leaned over against Charlie. "Don't be silly, Uncle Charlie, I can thump them all myself if I have to! I just wanted to know."

"Well, now you know. And you can still come to me if you need me to remind you." He paused, trying to decide if if was a good idea to add this - if it would hurt her more than it helped - but he remembered his own young adulthood, and he said, "And if it's your mum and dad or your grandparents who are making it hard for you, come and tell me that, too. No matter what they try to tell you, they won't need any grandkids from you." He reached up and ruffled her hair. "If I know your cousins, there will be plenty more munchkins like you around in a couple dozen years without needing any help from you."

She squealed and flattened her braids back down. "Stoppit, Uncle Charlie! I told you I'm too old for that now!" But once she'd fixed her hairdo to her satisfaction, she looked up at him and frowned. "It wasn't always easy for you, was it?"

He blinked. Perceptive as always. The new generation of Weasleys was going to be even more of a menace than the last one. "No. It wasn't always easy. But it's never easy learning how to be yourself, Roxy, no matter who you are. And anyway, I didn't have an Uncle Charlie generously offering to give people thumpings for me." He'd always had his suspicions about Uncle Bilius - and in his darker nights had clung to the idea that if he could go out like Uncle Bilius had, he'd count his life a success - but he'd never got up the courage to really talk to the man before he'd died. Maybe he'd been afraid to: afraid to find out that the only role model he knew did have a lost love, or a secret lover, or would tell him that being alone wasn't worth it...

Roxy flung her arms around his neck suddenly and squeezed.

"Wha---?" he started. "I thought you were too old for hugs now, Roxy, anyway."

She squeezed him again and then said into his neck, "I would thump them for you if I could," before she grabbed her flip-flops from the ground and ran back down the hill to where the Quidditch game was rapidly degenerating into a skirmish.


End file.
